Recycling and waste management centre

Problem description:

Santa Fe´s vulnerability is given by its environmental context. The main risks of disaster are associated with hydroclimatic phenomena such as river floods that surround Santa Fe or different intensity rains.

At the same time, this risk of flooding increases when the waste accumulates on the drainage and blocks the channel.

These two issues make the management of Santa Fe’s waste have two objectives, the reduction of environmental pollution and the minimise the flooding risk.

The city already has a recycling centre and the waste classification (between dry and humid waste) at home is promoted; however, the statistics still show that a high percentage of the population does still not have a compromise with waste management, or does not understand the importance of collective recycle to have a more sustainable city.

General objective:

In order to improve the collection or recyclable materials in the recycling centre is really important for us to continue creating management strategies that strengthen the collective environmental mindset. At the same time, we would like to improve the circular economy, increase the social and labour inclusion of the workers belonging to cooperatives that collaborate with the recollection of the waste and increase the lifespan of the dumps.

In order to be able to carry on with all the proposals established above, a proposal to create a programme of recyclable stations (fixed and mobiles) and to improve the quality of the waste that can be re-used.

This initiative will create an area where the problematic of the waste can be more visible and create awareness of the importance of trying to find a solution to this issue.
On the other hand, and considering that Santa Fe has always highlighted the importance of education, environmental education would be also be included in this programme. Issues as waste sorting and valuation of the recyclable materials are going to be included not only in public spaces but also in spaces as public gardens.
Strategy to solve the problem:

To develop this programme, the establishment of waste management fixed points and waste management mobile stations are essential. The mobile stations would be set in different public and private spaces as education centres, in order to increase the waste sorting in houses and facilitate the collection of different types of waste to facilitate the work to the workers of the cooperatives were this waste end and process to come back to start a new lifecycle. The idea is to start with the establishment of 20 recycle centres and 2 mobile stations. In these mobile stations is where awareness and sensibilization strategies will be carried out through environmental experts handing out informational material and doing workshops as EcoCanje (recyclable waste for flower or aromatic plants)